


Superposition

by Canaan



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode Tag, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Multi, Stand Alone, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 17:05:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four different endings for "Amy's Choice."  Some are more AU than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Superposition

**Author's Note:**

> The first bit is an alternate ending and the other three are episode tags. Completely stand-alone. Beta'd by the very kindly Yamx and DameRuth. Disclaimer: I don't own them, but Rory is a very compelling voice.

_Superposition: The position of a quantum particle occupying two or more places/states at the same time. This superposition is maintained until someone observes the particle and its position collapses down to a single possibility._

 

 _1_

  
"He trusted me," Amy says.

She's draped half-over him, her head resting over his heart, the two of them buried under enough blankets to warm and comfort a small village. Rory's sleepily content to hold her and rub the small of her back. They're alive, and she's his, and he's hers: no one can take that away from them. "He did?" he asks, since it seems like he should say something.

He feels her nod, more than he sees it. "Yeah. I told him the TARDIS was real, and he let me choose you. To be with you. Wherever you were."

 _To die._ He doesn't want to think it, but it pops into his mind anyway. He'd never been so glad of anything in his life as to see Amy's face, all covered with frost, and know that they were still alive. He squeezes her tighter. "The Doctor's a smart man," he says.

Amy lays a kiss on his chin. "When he isn't a bloody idiot."

That's all there is to say about it for now. There will be other days--the Doctor still won't say who the Dream Lord is, and there's no telling how long he'll stay away. But for right now, the Doctor's put half a galaxy between them and the cold star; and he's downstairs in the console room, trying to figure out how to keep the Dream Lord out of the TARDIS and drinking tea.

 _2_

  
"He trusted me," Amy says.

They're lying in bed, Amy half-atop him with her knee between his and half her body draped across his chest. Rory's eyelids have drifted almost shut, and he'd be perfectly content to sleep the sleep of the well-shagged, except that Amy's talking to him; and since she's just died to be with him, it seems like the least he can do is stay awake for her. "Who?" he asks intelligently.

He can hear her rolling her eyes; he doesn't have to see it. "The Doctor," she says.

It doesn't even faze him that Amy's still thinking about the Doctor while she's in bed with him. The Doctor has been an invisible presence in their lives since Rory was nine years old. "About time," Rory says. "We're always stuck trusting him--flew us right into a star, he did. Why shouldn't he trust you, for a change?"

"That's the point, Rory. _We_ trust _him_. But this time, _he_ trusted _me_."

She's looking up at him expectantly, and he's missing something, he knows he is. " _I_ trust you _all_ the time."

She lets her head fall back against his chest. "The Doctor was right: it _was_ a competition."

And Rory won, but with that note in Amy's voice, it doesn't seem the time to say so. He manages to roll up on his side, sliding his arm around her waist and looking into her eyes. It makes her breath catch in her throat. "I love you, Amy Pond," he says.

A smile fights its way onto her lips and she leans her forehead against his gently. "I love you too, you dolt."

 _3_

  
"He trusted me," Amy says.

It seems like a strange segue when they've just been making fierce and frantic love, too giddy with the knowledge that they're both still alive and in love for the outside world to make much difference. But the Doctor isn't really outside--he's on the inside, has been for a while. "Yeah?" he asks.

She makes an unhappy noise. "He kept asking me, you know. How I knew which world was real. He kept asking and asking . . . "

It makes an uncomfortable, cold lump in the pit of Rory's stomach. Amy had watched him die. Amy'd watched him die, and the Doctor couldn't manage to stop it. He doesn't want to know, but he has to ask: "What did you tell him?"

Her breath goes out of her all at once, like someone punched her in the gut. It makes him angry, makes him want to look around for whoever hurt her and give them what for (except he knows that it was him, and he can't be angry with himself for dying when he doesn't even remember it, can't really be angry with the Doctor for not stopping it--the Doctor's saved them from so much, even if he doesn't like to admit it). She sounds very lost, very much like the little girl he first met so many years ago, when she says, "Nothing. He knew, Rory. He knew I didn't know. But he gave me the keys, and took my hand, and let me crash us into our house."

She's crying now, pulling away from him, and Rory's got tears dripping off his collarbone as he sits up and takes her in his arms. It's half an hour before he gets her calmed down, gets her into her nightgown (the old flannel one that makes her feel warm and safe, not the slinky one with the spaghetti straps that she usually wears in their bed--when she wears anything at all), and tucks her in, putting on his trousers and telling her he's going to make her a cuppa.

He's not sure she's moved by the time he gets back, and she definitely doesn't ask where the tea is. Her eyes slide from his face over his shoulder and go very round, embarrassment flushing her face as she realizes he's brought the Doctor with him. She stammers something about having thought the Doctor was in the swimming pool, but he ignores her and Rory says, "We're all here and alive. That makes this a good day."

He sits on Amy's one side, and the Doctor sits on the other, and they hug her until she forgets to blush. "And here I thought I was too old for slumber parties," she says.

The Doctor brushes her hair from her face. "There you are, trying to be grown up again. Haven't we got that out of your head yet?" He's smiling, but there's a look in his eyes that Rory can't describe, except it's the first time he's really believed the Doctor when he's said he's nine hundred and seven years old.

The Doctor catches Rory looking and closes his eyes.

Rory crawls under the bedclothes, hoping that they don't still reek of sex and it's just his imagination. Amy settles her head on his shoulder and looks up at the Doctor. She pats the bed beside her. "Oi. We've all done enough sleeping sitting up in the last day."

The Doctor looks at her from slitted eyes. "I'm an old man, Amy," he says gently, the words heavy with something that feels less like age and more like guilt. "I don't need much sleep."

 _4_

  
"He trusted me," Amy says.

"Smart man," Rory says, running the palm of his hand along her ribs and flank as they enjoy the afterglow. "You're brilliant, Amy Pond."

She wriggles up the bed to kiss him. "So brilliant you'd risk dying with me?"

He captures her mouth with his again. "I didn't have to; I'd already been got."

To Rory, it's a distant fact--he doesn't really remember. But it makes Amy's eyes go dark and sober as she nods. "Curiosity killed the Rory. You didn't have to look out the window, you know." He pulls a face. She says, "I didn't know. The Doctor asked me how I knew, but I didn't know. He _knew_ I didn't know."

"But you risked it." They both did--and what was the point of that? Rory thought the Doctor didn't even _like_ him. He certainly wouldn't have come back for him if it hadn't been for Amy.

Amy's gaze goes distant. "You didn't see the look on his face. I told him to save you . . . and he couldn't. And he looked . . . not just helpless. Guilty."

Rory hugs her tighter. "It's not your fault," he says.

"But it is," she murmurs. "I'm the one who said . . . I asked him what the point was. What was the _point_ of him, if he couldn't save you?"

"Amy--"

"I don't think he knew."

Rory sighs. "Not your fault, Amy. A man doesn't get to feel responsible for the whole universe just because you lay it at his feet."

She just stares at him.

He scrambles for more. "Remember, he said there was only one man that hated him that much? And he _was_ the Dream Lord." Rory feels his jaw go slack as the penny drops. "Oh god. The man just got walloped by all the bits of himself that he hates and we left him on his own. On his way to a swimming pool."

Amy's already on her feet, slithering into her white satin nightgown and grabbing for the robe before Rory even starts looking around for his track suit bottoms.

***

  
It's just as well the Doctor never made it to the swimming pool--they'd be trying to drag him back to their bedroom dripping wet. They find him without too much trouble, pacing up and down a pale stone floor beneath gold-shot glass columns that appear to have no other purpose than supporting a variety of platforms connected by free-floating stairs. Certainly they do nothing to hold the ceiling up, as they sort of peter out as if giving up on the job somewhere below a sky that Rory knows has to be artificial--not that he can tell.

"Don't you ever sleep?" Amy asks.

The Doctor jumps like a startled cat, somehow turning in mid-air to look at them. Amy manages to turn a snicker into a cough. The Doctor either doesn't notice, or decides to ignore it. "I'm old, Amy. The old don't sleep as much."

"It's not the sleep that worries us," Rory says. "It's the dreams."

The Doctor's eyes narrow. "There won't be any dreams, Rory. The Dream Lord is gone with the psychic pollen. Try to keep up."

Rory ignores the slight--people in pain say all kinds of things they mightn't otherwise. "Not _our_ dreams," he says, Amy's hand in his as they move closer to the Doctor. "Yours. There's one place the Dream Lord still exists." He reaches with his free hand to touch a fingertip to the center of the Doctor's forehead.

The Doctor makes a rude noise. "Rubbish," he says, but he doesn't move away.

"I don't think it is," Amy says, more meekly than Amy ever gets. "I didn't mean it, you know." The Doctor looks blank. "About there being no point to you."

Rory drops his hand as the Doctor's eyebrows rise, because there's only so long you can look serious and concerned with your arm hanging in mid-air. "But that's really what worries you, isn't it?" Rory asks.

"I have no idea what you mean," the Doctor says, but his eyes are restless, and he won't quite look at either one of them.

Rory pushes on, because he really does worry, and he really is tired, and he'd like to sleep sometime tonight. "How was that limerick going to end?" he says. "He let down his friends, and . . . "

The Doctor glares. "Amy, Rory," he says, "what is it going to take to get you to walk out of here? Go back to bed."

That . . . is a really excellent question. The Doctor really shouldn't be left alone right now, but Rory hasn't thought beyond that. "Come with us," Amy says.

"What?" the Doctor says.

 _What?_ Rory finds himself echoing inside his head, but Amy's got a point. "What she said."

Amy grabs the Doctor's hand with her free one. "You heard me. Come on then. It'll be like a slumber party."

 _Or like sleeping in the psych ward,_ Rory thinks, but he's pretty sure he doesn't mean it. It's not like his cousin Andy said when he was fourteen and Rory was twelve, that grown men don't share a bed unless they're arsefuckers; and anyway, Amy will be there. And really, the Doctor's always been part of the two of them: an invisible third presence in everything they ever did together, since Amy first wanted to play Raggedy Doctor with him. He lets go of Amy to grab the alien's other hand.

"You're not going to listen to 'no,' are you?" the Doctor asks.

"No," Amy and Rory answer in the same breath. They share a slightly befuddled grin over the man in the middle.

***

  
"I think Rory is likely to object to your undressing me," the Doctor says as Amy tugs at his jacket.

"Your jacket is scratchy," Amy says, undeterred.

"And boots don't belong in the bed," Rory says, taking off his slippers and remembering, too late, that the sheets probably smell of sex. Not like that comes as any surprise, but it's still embarrassing. "Oh god, I sound like my Aunt Matilda."

"Well, it's a good job you don't look like her," Amy says as the Doctor surrenders his jacket and begins unlacing his boots. She makes off with the jacket before he can change his mind, Rory notices as he climbs into bed.

The jacket ends up on a hook and the boots under a table. The Doctor stares at the bed like he's never seen one before. "You sleep in braces?" Rory asks.

"What's wrong with braces?" the Doctor complains.

Amy says, "Nothing's wrong. Wrong? Braces? Nah." One sneaky hand darts up to unravel the bow tie while the Doctor is listening to her. "You always blend in perfectly, Doctor."

"My tie!" the Doctor objects belatedly, his hand going to his throat a second after Amy makes off with the offending garment.

"Best just to give up," Rory advises. "There'd be no living with her till she got her way."

"Oi!" she protests. The tie ends up in the Doctor's coat pocket (one blue end dangling limply out of it; just as well, that--it might never be seen again if it disappeared inside). Amy takes the three steps from the coat hook back to the bed and gives the Doctor a little shove toward it.

Rory draws back the bedclothes, making space for the other two to climb in. "This is ridiculous," the Doctor complains.

"Well, then, you should feel right at home," Amy points out.

The Doctor crawls into the bed and lies on his side, his face turned away from Amy and his eyes already shut. Amy rolls her eyes, sheds her robe, and slips in behind him, draping an arm over a nine hundred and seven-year-old alien like she could protect him that way. "You want the lights off?" Rory asks.

"Leave them on," she says. "I think if I wake up in the middle of the night tonight, I want to know exactly where I am." Her hand rises off the Doctor's ribs and she wiggles her fingers at Rory. "You're so far away, Rory," she says.

Rory moves closer, reminding himself that the Doctor is just one more patient right now. By the time Amy can reach him over the Doctor, he's got cause to wish they'd managed to get the man out of his braces, too. "Goodnight," he says awkwardly.

"Goodnight," the Doctor says, in the same breath that Amy says, "I love you."

And that's all there is to be done about it. Except that Amy is stroking his hip as they lie there, and eventually, that's going to have an effect. He's trying to ignore it--because god, how can he say anything?--but a few minutes later, he has to. "Amy," he whispers.

She stops, then, reaching up to pet the Doctor's hair instead. He really does look ridiculous like this; it's not so much that he's lying with his face smashed into the pillows and his hair even more off-kilter than usual, it's more that he's holding still. When he's in motion--and if he's awake, he's always in motion--something prevents you from noticing the goofy hair, the dated clothes, the rolled-up trousers. But just now, his breathing is deep and even, and with his eyes closed and the dignity of age gone into hiding, he looks a bit silly. And very young. And very alone.

Amy settles down eventually. Rory finds himself lying awake. It's not that he isn't tired-- it's that there's too much swimming around his head. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling.

It's probably half an hour before Amy shifts a bit and sits up. By the frown on her face, she's not doing any better with sleeping than he is. She looks down at him and the frown goes away, a smile touching her lips instead and a hint of devilment in her eyes. Rory props himself up on one elbow, trying to ask a question with the list of his eyebrows so that he doesn't wake the man between them. Her smile widens, and she leans closer to him. It dawns on Rory that she's trying to kiss him a moment before he realizes she's going to overbalance and land on top of both of them. He sits up abruptly, catching her in the same moment her outstretched hand brushes the Doctor's sleeve.

The Doctor doesn't stir, and Amy's kiss is tender, and passionate, and completely undeterred.

It's one thing to trade kisses over the passed-out Doctor (though the way Amy kisses, it's hard to think about anything else while that's going on). It's another when she pulls away a few inches, her eyes locked on his, and braces herself against his shoulders as she swings a leg wide over the Doctor to plant her foot carefully between Rory's knees. "Amy," he hisses again.

But it's too late. The second glorious leg follows the first and they overbalance, Rory winding up shoved up against the Doctor for a moment as he falls backward onto the bed. He stiffens and wiggles away again immediately, opening his mouth to put Amy off, because he's pretty sure a bloke can't be half-hard if he's just fallen asleep--not even an alien one. "Amy, the Doctor--" Rory starts, but then she kisses him in that pushy way that tells him she's trying to shut him up. And god help him, it works.

Amy settles her knees to both sides of Rory's hips, the white satin of her nightgown crawling up the creamy length of her thighs, and makes muffled happy noises into his mouth. His hands settle at her waist, like he's not sure whether to push her away or pull her closer, because he's sure the Doctor is not asleep; but it's been hard watching her with the Doctor for so long, not knowing for sure if there was any place left for him until a few hours ago. And now that's not the only thing that's hard, and he wants nothing more than to revel in his place in her life, and somehow, his hands are on Amy's breasts . . . which he does _not_ want the Doctor to see . . .

She makes an impatient noise, and when it doesn't have the desired effect, takes matters into her own hands, nipping at his lips as she shrugs out of the one strap still clinging bravely to her shoulder and tugs the satin slickness of her nightgown out of the way, leaving Rory's hands on her skin.

Her breasts are perfect--they're exactly right in his hands and always have been, ever since she was sixteen and her aunt was at a conference in London for a week. She's distracting and she's beautiful as he kisses his way along her jaw and nuzzles at her throat. He knows this is a bad idea, and it gets worse when she hooks her thumbs into his waistband and slips his track suit bottoms down just enough. He wonders if it's possible to really die from embarrassment. Then she lifts up a little, the warm slickness of her folds brushing the tip of his cock as she finds the right angle. He has to swallow back a gasp even before she settles down on him.

God, they just did this not an hour ago, and yet it's such a relief to be inside her, to rise up to meet her as she's riding him. She leans back to get more traction, nightgown an afterthought pooled around her hips, head thrown back, teeth pressing into her own bottom lip as she tries to stay quiet. She's so much more gorgeous than any painting in any art museum she's ever dragged him to. He can't escape the feeling that they're being watched, somehow, even though the Doctor hasn't stirred and his eyes are completely closed. But there's nothing he can do about it that doesn't involve stopping, and god, he can't stop now, Amy's so close and he knows he won't outlast her. He strokes his thumb down the hollow of her hip and along her pubic bone, keeping it slow so she has to know what's coming, has to think about what he's going to touch . . .

They never make it that far. She comes, pressing the heel of her hand against her mouth at the last moment to muffle a cry. It sends him over the edge, makes him grab her hips hard, holding her to him, and she's _his_ , and she loves him, and it's the two of them, Amy and Rory, even if somehow, it might always be the three of them . . .

She pulls away and rolls onto the patch of bed beside him, suffering him to tug her nightgown back up until it covers her nipples. She has this tiny half-grin on her face, as if to say, "You're utterly foolish sometimes, but I love you." He rolls on his side to face her, fitting himself to her, and whispers in her ear, "I love you too."

Her eyes drift shut after a few minutes, and he watches as her breathing slows and all the bold and bravado drain out of her. He leans forward to kiss her forehead and lets his own eyes close.

The touch is so slight, it takes him a moment to notice: cool fingers, hesitant on his shoulder. Rory thinks about it. It seems a bit late now to throw the Doctor out of their bed. He makes what he hopes is a neutral noise.

The mattress shifts as the Doctor closes the small space between them. His braces are still uncomfortable against bare skin, and his body's still not as entirely uninterested as the man himself always pretends to be, but they can both ignore that, and tomorrow they'll both pretend it didn't happen. The Doctor's breath is cool against the back of Rory's neck.

The hand on his shoulder is still only the lightest touch, and Rory would have to be awfully thick to miss the tension in the other man's body at this range. It's painful at some level he can't account for, and distracting enough that he can't sleep. After a minute, Rory reaches up and takes the Doctor's hand, dragging his arm across both of them to rest comfortably at Amy's waist. The Doctor relaxes.

Two hearts. It's one thing to know that, and another to feel them beating behind him. It's a bit surreal, that, but the rhythm is a comfortable monotony that Rory takes with him into sleep.


End file.
